Characters / MCU: Xu Shang-Chi

Main Character Index > Heroic Individuals and Organizations > Other Superheroes (Jane Foster | Robbie Reyes | Xu Shang-Chi | Kate Bishop | Moon Knight | Kamala Khan | Wade Wilson | James "Logan" Howlett)

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Xu Shang-Chi / "Shaun" (徐尚氣)

"I thought I could change my name. Start a new life. But I could never escape his shadow."

Birth Name: Xu Shang-Chi

Known Aliases: "Shaun", "Bus Boy"

Species: Human

Citizenship: Chinese-Ta Loan, American

Affiliation(s): Ten Rings (formerly), Fairmont San Francisco (formerly), Ta Lo

Portrayed By: Simu Liu, Arnold Sun (teen), Jayden Zhang (young)

Voiced By: Roberto Salguero (Latin American Spanish dub), Yoshimasa Hosoya (Japanese dub), Gabriel Noya (Brazilian Portuguese dub), Nikita Moiseev (Russian dub)

Appearances: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings | Untitled Shang-Chi sequel

"After my mom died, my dad started my training. From sun up to sun down, I was taught every possible way to kill a man."

A lazy and immature mooch who seems more than content to spend the rest of his life in perpetual childhood, working menial jobs and goofing around with his best friend Katy Chen.

...At least, that's what he's going for. He is actually a master martial artist and assassin from China; the son, and intended heir of Xu Wenwu - otherwise known as the Mandarin, the immortal warlord who commands the Ten Rings. At a very young age, Wenwu's family experienced a terrible tragedy. In his despair, the broken man proceeded to mold his own son into a living weapon fit to lead the Ten Rings. But Shang-Chi's heart was simply not in it, so he fled to San Francisco and remained in hiding for ten years.

His past finally catches up to him when Wenwu reappears in his life, trying to draw him back into his criminal organization with mysterious intentions.

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#-K

• 11th-Hour Superpower: During the Final Battle against the Dweller-in-Darkness, Shang-Chi is able to combine both the powers of his father's rings and his mother's wind magic to destroy the monstrosity for good.
• The Ace: Shang-Chi is able to effortlessly perform numerous types of martial arts, wield different kinds of weapons with effective proficiency, and incapacitate multiple adversaries with little problem. His bus fight with Razor Fist in San Francisco turns him into a viral internet sensation, and Wenwu himself is proud that Shang-Chi did not lose his touch after ten years. This is before his arrival to Ta Lo where he becomes adept in utilizing his mother's wind magic and all ten of his father's rings.
• Adaptation Name Change: In the comics, his name was originally just Shang-Chi. After it was revealed his that father, uncle, sister, and two half-sisters have the family name "Zheng", his full name was later listed as Zheng Shang-Chi in a guidebook. In the MCU, he introduces himself as "Xu Shang-Chi".
• Adaptation Origin Connection: In the comics, Shang-Chi is the son of Fu Manchu and was trained from infancy in the martial arts by his father and tutors. Here, Shang-Chi is made the son of the Mandarin, with his martial arts training having come from the Ten Rings organization.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Shang-Chi is nothing like the Hot-Blooded Bruce Lee Clone he was when he first appeared in the comics, being a chillaxed Nice Guy, much like his later personality in the comics.
• Adaptational Badass: Zig-zagged. Like the comics, he's an incredible martial artist who can utilize Ki Manipulation later in the film. But in the climax, Shang-Chi is gifted the Ten Rings himself which he combines with his Chi to spectacular effect and allows him to defeat his father and even the Dweller-in-Darkness, essentially making him twice as powerful as his comic counterpart who mainly uses Chi to enhance his strikes and doesn't have the Ten Rings. On the other hand, his comic version has few flashy Chi-powers, while his film version needs the Ten Rings to do so.
• Adapted Out:
  • Shang-Chi's father in the original comics is Fu Manchu, whom Marvel does not own (and is widely considered to be a racist stereotype). His father is instead a Composite Character of Fu and the Mandarin known as Xu Wenwu.
  • In the comics, Shang-Chi had multiple sisters, specifically Fah Lo Suee, who, just like with Fu Manchu, Marvel no longer owned the rights to and was considered to be a Dragon Lady stereotype. In the MCU, Shang-Chi only has one sister, Xu Xialing, who is a Composite Character of Fah Lo Suee / Zheng Bao Yu and other characters.
• Almighty Janitor: He's a valet driver who's fluent in four languages, a master of many martial arts and weapons, and a dangerous assassin.
• Alternate Self: Shang-Chi has one alternate counterpart on Earth-89521 who's a survivor in the zombie apocalypse.
• Ancestral Weapon: Is given the Ten Rings by his father with a small smile on his face as he's killed by the Dweller-in-Darkness.
• Ass Kicking Pose: Shang-Chi makes such a pose before kicking the asses of Razor Fist and his goons inside a bus that is both moving and malfunctioning at high speed.
• Atrocious Alias: After his fight on the bus goes viral, Jon Jon recognizes Shang-Chi as "Bus Boy" and announces him in the fighting ring as such.
• Badass Driver: While not quite on the same level as Katy, Shang-Chi is able to drive a malfunctioning bus through the streets of San Francisco while also attempting to not get stabbed or sliced by Razor Fist's heated blade. Those years of parking cars as a hotel valet have truly paid off.
• Badass Normal: Has no superpowers, enhancements, or mystical weapons. He's just a guy who's really good at martial arts... because his father put him through Training from Hell to be an elite assassin. Even after a decade of lying low, he's still a skilled hand-to-hand fighter. Of course, this is before he goes to Ta Lo, and through training discovers he is able to pull off the same elemental abilities from his mother. Also, he eventually inherits the Ten Rings that belonged to his father.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: He's a master martial artist who was trained by his immortal warrior king father so that even the world's most dangerous people couldn't kill him. Even as a child he could defeat multiple trained Ten Rings members by himself. According to Word of God, his fighting style includes several Kung Fu styles (Tai chi, Wing Chun, and Wushu) along with Taekwondo, Muay Thai, Silat, Krav Maga, Jujutsu, and boxing. He later learns Ta Lo's ancient martial arts style after coming to his mother's village before mastering all ten of his father's rings.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's a really kind and caring guy who prefers to avoid violence, and chooses not to fight the Ten Rings soldiers sent after him until they hurt Katy. That said, he's still one of the best martial artists in the world and was trained to be an assassin as a child, and will kick ass whenever needed. He resolves to kill his father but ultimately doesn't go through with it.
• Big Brother Instinct: Despite leaving his sister Xialing behind after killing the Iron Gang leader at the age of 14, Shang-Chi still cares deeply about her. After learning that the Ten Rings are targeting the pendants that he and Xialing inherit from their mother, Shang-Chi decides to protect his sister by traveling all the way from San Francisco to her given address in Macau. When the Dweller-in-Darkness starts to drain the soul of the Great Protector and pries Xialing off the dragon's back, Shang-Chi chooses to rescue his sister first and promises to not leave her again.
• Blow You Away: After being saved by the Great Protector and reconciling his heritage as his mother and father's son, he gains his maternal ancestors' power to control air, which allows him to increase his agility and create blasts and shields of air using martial arts.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Essentially what he strives to be at the beginning; another friend comments that he's incredibly talented at anything he tries to do, but refuses to pursue anything other than a slacker lifestyle. Deconstructed in that his "laziness" is actually due to him being greatly ashamed of his family legacy and wanting to escape it, and he finds comfort in living a low-key, semi-hedonistic lifestyle of perpetual immaturity. Also, there's the fact that he's in hiding from his father's international criminal organization.
• Brother–Sister Team: Forms one with his younger sister Xu Xialing during the climax of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, with the two working together to destroy the Dweller-in-Darkness.
• Calling the Old Man Out: While fighting his father in Ta Lo, he furiously yells at him that his warmongering ways were the reason Ying Li was killed.
• Casting Gag: This is not the first time Simu Liu plays a character who works with cars, is not proud of who he used to be, and has a difficult relationship with his father.
• Celebrity Paradox: The MCU is filled with Star Wars references across its movies and shows. Simu Liu voiced Lah Zhima in one episode of Star Wars: Visions.
• Chain Pain: He uses the Ten Rings to make an energy whip in combat.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: He's a completely normal human who can fight on the same level as Captain America and Black Panther with nothing but intense training. Until he manages to master his mother's wind manipulation and wields his father's rings.
• Child of Two Worlds: The son of Ying Li a former inhabitant of Ta Lo, an alternate dimension where its residents are trained in ancient martial arts and guard the universe from the Dweller-in-Darkness, and Xu Wenwu/The Mandarin, a millennia-old warlord and head of the terrorist organization the Ten Rings. When his father tries to invade Ta Lo because its residents are apparently keeping his mother imprisoned behind the dark gate, Shang-Chi goes to Ta Lo to help stop him. After learning about his maternal heritage and accepting that he's the son of both of his parents, he gains the strength needed to fight his father and defeat the Dweller-in-Darkness using the Ta Lo fighting style and the Ten Rings.
• Clothing Combat: Shang-Chi briefly uses his jacket as an improvised weapon against the Ten Rings operatives during the bus fight in San Francisco.
• Composite Character: In the comics, it is Temugin and not Shang-Chi who is the Mandarin's son.
• Dark and Troubled Past: As a boy, Shang-Chi personally witnessed the murder of his mother. Not long after, his vengeful father trained him to become the Ten Rings' deadliest assassin.
• Dark Secret: What has he been keeping back from his pal Katy, even to the point of lying to her about it. As a child, he agreed with his father's vendetta against the Iron Gang and did proceed to avenge his mother's death by murdering, at the very least, the Iron Gang's leader.
• Deadpan Snarker: Shang-Chi's sense of humor almost rivals that of Katy, which sometimes leads to a Snark-to-Snark Combat between the two.
• Defector from Decadence: Fled to San Francisco to live a normal life away from the Ten Rings and his father and distance himself from his old life, not wanting anything to do with the terrorist organization, especially after he was trained to become an assassin as a child and went through with killing his mother's murderer.
• Destination Defenestration: While fighting the Ten Rings assassins in a bus, he punches one of them into the window hard enough to send the person out of the bus, taking him out of the fight.
• Disappointing Older Sibling: Xialing is pretty pissed that she waited years for her brother to return after he promised to return after 3 days only to realize he'd abandoned her.
• The Dragon: After his mother's death, Shang-Chi initially wanted to lead the Ten Rings alongside his father. But after assassinating the man who killed his mother, he was burdened with guilt, which prompted him to leave his father and old life behind.
• Dragon Rider: After being saved from drowning by the Great Protector, Ta Lo's guardian dragon, he rides it twice during the climactic battle, first when he went to fight his father one last time and later during the battle against the Dweller-in-Darkness.
• Dual Wielding: Even after Razor Fist used his blade to slice the laptop, and later on, the metal bar he is holding, Shang-Chi is still capable of using the smaller halves as improvised weapons.
• Elemental Motifs: While his father uses the Ten Rings, they're blue and channel electricity. But when Shang-Chi uses them they're orange and produce a fire-like stream, similar to his mother when she had used them, representing his warm, protective nature in contrast to Wenwu's cold ruthlessness.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Shang-Chi gets the Ten Rings by the end of his film, giving him all the powers they contain. Before that, he gained his mother's wind-controlling abilities, combining the two.
• Entertainingly Wrong: He hides from his father after leaving the Ten Rings because he assumes he will be killed for desertion. In truth, Wenwu not only never lost track of him but was in fact entirely understanding of his need for emotional space.
• Everyman: Invoked by Shang-Chi himself. In the shame of following through with his father's bidding and in desperation to run away from his broken childhood under Wenwu's grip, Shang-Chi intentionally pursued a life as a normal person and cultivated the most average life he could. As a result, in the present, he acts like an average, befuddled slacker caught up in big things, but the more the secrets come out the more he is revealed to be far more poised than he seems.
• Fight Clubbing: Shang-Chi unknowingly signed himself up as a contestant of the Golden Daggers Club, and much to his bafflement, his opponent is none other than his long-lost little sister Xialing.
• Foil: To his father, Xu Wenwu. Both are highly accomplished martial artists with a strong familial connection to Ying Li and they both wield the Ten Rings with proficient mastery. While Shang-Chi is able to move on from Ying Li's death, Wenwu was (for a while) unable to accept the fact that she is truly gone.
• Generation Xerox: Ying Nan notes that Shang-Chi looks just like his mother. After reconnecting with his maternal heritage, he utilizes the same powers and fighting techniques that his mother used to defeat his father. Later on, he wields the Ten Rings the same way his father did.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: When Shang-Chi uses the Ten Rings, they emit a bright golden-orange glow with power and versatility that Wenwu could never utilize.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: He's a master martial artist partnered with the archer Katy.
• Happiness in Minimum Wage: His job during the decade he spent in America was to be a hotel valet and live in a garage apartment, far from being the wealthy criminal prince he was born as. Despite this, he's clearly happier in America than with the Ten Rings.
• Harmful to Minors: At age 7, Shang-Chi watched the Iron Gang killing his mother in front of him. His father then killed a member of the Iron Gang in cold blood in front of him as part of his Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Hates Their Parent: Deeply resents his father for devolving back into a merciless criminal warlord after his mother's death who brutally trained him as a child to become an assassin and kill his mother's murderer. Shang-Chi blames Wenwu for this and decides to kill him, later calling him out for emotionally abandoning his children when they had needed him after their mother's death. However, he ends up being unable to bring himself to kill his father after getting all the Rings and seeing that he's still fully willing to fight, and instead tries to reason with him. Shang-Chi later forgives him after he sacrifices himself to save his son's life, mourning his death and hoping that he can find peace.
• Heritage Disconnect: Shang-Chi purposefully abandoned his father's heritage as leader of the Ten Rings. He gets to connect with his mother's culture in Ta Lo, and later on comes to grip with being his father's son.
• Heroic Second Wind: After getting easily beaten by his father when he invades Ta Lo with the Ten Rings, he gets this after the Great Protector saves him from drowning and he internally confronts his heritage and remembers his mother's last words. After this, he's able to use Ta Lo's martial arts, allowing him to fight his father on better ground, gaining control of his Ten Rings during the fight and defeating him. After Xu Wenwu sacrifices himself to save him from the now broken-out Dweller-in-Darkness, Shang-Chi works with the others and uses said rings to destroy the monster.
• Hope Spot: During the final fight, Shang-Chi finally manages to get through to Wenwu, convincing him to put his living children over the false hope of resurrecting his dead wife. But the very next second it turns out Wenwu's first couple hits weakened the barrier enough that the Dweller-in-Darkness doesn't need any more help to smash through.
• I Am Not My Father: The crux of his conflict with his father Xu Wenwu / The Mandarin. A core part of Shang-Chi's character development is accepting that he is his father's son, and after he sacrifices himself to save his son from the Dweller-in-Darkness, forgives his father for their rough past and mourns his death.
  Shang-Chi: I'm nothing like you.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Unable to carry out his first assassination, he decides to run away to live a normal life. At least that's what he first tells Katy. He actually did kill the target who was behind his mother's death. Putting the murder behind him is what actually drove him to change everything.
• Improvised Weapon: Shang-Chi uses his jacket, another person's laptop, and a metal bar as weapons while fighting Razor Fist and his goons inside a moving bus.
• Instant Expert: Played with. Shang-Chi shows himself to be really proficient with the Ten Rings as he gains control of them during the fight with his father. During the battle against the Dweller-in-Darkness, he uses them to perform superhuman feats and form energy blasts and constructs. Similarly, he becomes proficient in the Ta Lo fighting style, enough so to defeat his father, but has not mastered it to the extent that he can control the wind like his mother and aunt. Because Shang-Chi was trained in multiple combat styles as a child, it would make sense that he could pick up new techniques and adapt quickly.
• Instant Web Hit: The video of him fighting the Ten Rings members sent for him on the San Francisco bus that was recorded by a passenger racks up over 2,000,000 views in a short amount of time. This becomes a minor plot point when, because of this, he accidentally signs a contract that forces him to fight in a match in the underground fight club. The announcer introduces him as "Bus Boy".
• Interchangeable Asian Cultures: The Chinese Shang-Chi met Katy when she came to his aid after a bully compared him to PSY, whom she knew is Korean, and called him out on.
• It's All About Me: Not in the present but in the past; when Shang-Chi is sent on his first mission by his father to seek out and assassinate the perpetrator of his mother's death. Shang-Chi promised that he would come back for Xu Xialing, but after getting his revenge, Shang-Chi opted to run away by himself and just try to cut off ties with his family completely. Lying and abandoning his sister is one of his biggest regrets.
• It's Personal:
  • Strongly implied when he gets into a fight with Death Dealer in Macau. Just before he's about to kill him, he hesitates and has a flashback to his intensive childhood training, during which, Death Dealer was his personal trainer and never hesitated to dole out Corporal Punishment.
  • Also strongly implied when he followed through in assassinating his mother's murderer.
• Kamehame Hadoken: He uses his mother's chi-Aerokinesis and his father's Rings to make a golden energy ball which he gathers behind him in a Kamehameha-Hadoken pose, although he decides not follow through with the attack out of love for his father whom he is fighting. Dragon Ball even gets referenced at the end by Katy who likens his final attack against the Dweller-in-Darkness to the Kamehameha while excitedly explaining the adventure to their disbelieving normie friends.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Just as it seems that Shang-Chi has bought enough time for Xialing and Katy to evacuate when the Ten Rings invade Xialing's underground fight club, his father stops him from killing his former teacher. Wenwu was watching the fight the whole time and already captured Xialing and Katy, but to seal the deal he has dozens of soldiers surrounding his son. Shang-Chi surrenders with a look of resignation, though Wenwu affectionately touches his forehead and says he's proud of how well his son fought.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: He qualifies as this for becoming a martial artist who inherits his mother's magical ability to manipulate the wind and his father's rings that possess tremendous powers.

L-Y

• Lazy Alias: As part of his efforts to live a normal life, he goes by the name "Shaun". As Katy points out when she learns about his past, this is barely a change from his real name and it's no wonder he was tracked down so easily.
• Let's Get Dangerous!:
  • Shang-Chi starts the bus fight protesting that he doesn't want to fight. Then one of the bad guys hits Katy and Shang-Chi jumps into action.
  • Also during the climax, Shang-Chi is at first barely able to touch Wenwu, who easily dodges or blocks his attacks... until Wenwu angrily shouts that Shang-Chi did nothing to help his mother, just watching while she died. Shang-Chi was seven and it was the most traumatic experience of his life, so, yeah, he steps up.
• Light Is Good: Shang-Chi has a heroic heart, and when he starts to bond with all ten of his father's rings, they emit a bright golden-orange glow that contrasts the darker blue when they are wielded by Wenwu.
• Lightning Bruiser: The Training from Hell that Shang-Chi endured for seven years has successfully molded him into a fast, formidable, and resilient master martial artist.
• Lightning/Fire Juxtaposition: His chi while using the Ten Rings visualizes as red-orange fire, in contrast to his father's chi which visualizes as blue lightning.
• Like Brother and Sister: Katy and Shang-Chi's relationship seems to be very close (Shang-Chi delivers a Curb-Stomp Battle to anyone who threatens Katy), but purely platonic, despite what Katy's grandmother may think.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Wenwu is a merciless warlord who sought power for centuries, conquering many kingdoms over millennia using the Ten Rings and leading a notorious criminal organization. Shang-Chi on the other hand ran away from his birthright as his father's heir and didn't want to continue being an assassin, fleeing to San Francisco and was content living a normal, ordinary life until he's forced to confront his past when Wenwu tries to bring him back into the Ten Rings. Although Shang-Chi inherits and wields the Ten Rings after his father was killed by the Dweller-in-Darkness, he chooses to use them on his own terms while resuming the life he made in San Francisco.
• Lineage Comes from the Father: Played With. A source of inner conflict for Shang-Chi is being the son of Wenwu, a millennia-old warlord who brutally trained Shang-Chi to become an assassin who ended up killing his mother Ying Li's killer on a mission assigned by his father, which led him to become ashamed of his past, thinking his mother would hate the person he had become, and flee to San Francisco and refuse his heritage. After reconciling his heritage as his mother's son and moving past his guilt for assassinating her killer, he gains the air powers of the members of Ta Lo, his mother's village, and shows an affinity with the Great Protector, the guardian of Ta Lo. Following his father's sacrifice to save his life, he wields Wenwu's Ten Rings.
• Magic Staff: He wields a staff coated in dragon scales when fighting the Ten Rings in Ta Lo until it is destroyed by his father.
• Magical Accessory: He inherits his father's rings so that he can use them to vanquish the Dweller-in-Darkness.
• Manchild: Intentionally invoked as something of a coping mechanism for him due to his Dark and Troubled Past. After completing the hit on the boss of the Iron Gang, he runs away and retreats into a life of perpetual childhood, playing at half-assed menial jobs, messing about, and just going nowhere in life along with Katy, even being (somewhat lovingly) labeled a mooch by her family. Their friends moving ahead in life, facing his father and the Ten Rings once more, coming to terms with her mother's fantastical legacy, and even being welcomed by Bruce Banner into the crazy world of the Avengers ultimately doesn't change this as being a light-hearted hedonist is a core part of who he is now.
• Martial Pacifist: Has an aversion to violence after being raised to be a child assassin at the age of 7. He tries to avoid fighting the Ten Rings soldiers sent for him until they hurt Katy, and then shows off why he's a master martial artist after a decade of inactivity.
• Memento MacGuffin: The necklace his mother gave him when he was a young boy turns out to be this, revealing the map to Ta Lo when placed in the eye of a dragon statue, along with a second, identical necklace that Xialing has.
• Misplaced Retribution: Shang-Chi ends up blaming his father for his mother's death since the gangsters wanted revenge for his Ten Rings days despite the fact that Wenwu had genuinely given up his criminal ways and obviously would have done anything to prevent her death given the insane lengths he's willing to go to bring her back. Wenwu returns the favor by criticizing Shang-Chi for not stopping Ying Li's murder, despite the fact that he was only 7 years old. Both characters are just taking out their immense grief on each other because they've already actually gotten revenge that hasn't resolved their emotional issues or made them feel better.
• Momma's Boy: Was close to his late mother as a child and was crushed by her death, and, granted he didn't understand what it entailed at first thanks to his age, was willing to help his father avenge her murder. The thought that his mother would hate the person he had become after he completed his mission to assassinate her killer was what pushed him to stop being an assassin and leave the Ten Rings.
• Mr. Fanservice: Gets an extended Shirtless Scene showing off his muscular build when he's forced to fight topless in the underground fight club at Macau.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Suffered this after he followed through with his father's mission and assassinated his mother's killer as a teenager, thinking that she would be disgusted with the person he had become. This is what pushed him to leave the Ten Rings to put his past behind him.
• My Greatest Failure: Assassinating his mother's killer is this to him, and he was so ashamed of himself that he abandoned the Ten Rings and his family to try and put it behind him. He was mostly successful in doing so until Wenwu decided to track him down.
• Mythical Motifs: He and his comic counterpart are often paralleled with visuals and images of Classic Chinese Dragons. His mother tells him to he has the heart of a dragon, and is saved by and rides the Great Protector, the guardian dragon of Ta Lo.
• Naturalized Name: "Approximation" variant; the Chinese Shang-Chi goes by "Shaun" in America. Katy considers it a Lazy Alias.
  Katy: What is your name change logic? You're going into hiding. And your name is Michael, you go on and change it to Mishael.
• Nice Guy: Despite being a former assassin and the son of a warlord, Shang-Chi is a friendly and fun-loving chap with a big heart.
• Not Quite Flight: One of Shang-Chi's techniques with the Ten Rings is to use rings suspended in mid-air as footholds, allowing him to run across the sky and launch superhuman-like flying kicks from even greater heights.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Downplayed in that he's more of a ditz than actually stupid, but once he and Katy are attacked on a bus in San Francisco, Shang-Chi demonstrates that he's a hell of a lot smarter and competent than you'd first expect from a valet guy who slacks off and participates in drunken karaoke with his best friend.
• Oh, Crap!: He has had this reaction several times in his first film.
  • When his fight with Razor Fist is starting to tear the bus they are in apart.
  • When he learns that his opponent in the Golden Daggers Club is his long-lost sister Xialing.
  • When he realizes that his father was the one who sent the postcard that reveals Xialing's address in Macau.
  • When his father unknowingly unleashes the Dweller-in-Darkness.
• Older Than They Look: Despite being Xialing's older brother, Shang-Chi looks a bit younger than her when they reunite in adulthood. Add the fact that the actor Simu Liu is two years younger than Meng'er Zhang in real life, despite portraying her older brother.
• Omniglot: He's stated to be fluent in four different languages, with Mandarin and English being just two of them.
• One-Man Army: As a testament to his Training from Hell to become an assassin, by the time he was 14 he could defeat over ten warriors of the Ten Rings all at once by himself.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: His hatred of Death Dealer and the Training from Hell he subjected him to is strong enough for Shang-Chi to seriously attempt to kill him when he gains the upper hand in their fight.
• Parental Abandonment: His mother died fighting off the Iron Gang who came to their home to get revenge against his father. And he's been estranged from his father for a decade, abandoning him after he forced him to undergo harsh training to become a child assassin. Though Wenwu has been keeping tabs on him for the past decade and only makes it known when he tries to take his necklace and get him to rejoin the Ten Rings. And his father later dies saving him from the Dweller-in-Darkness.
• Patricide: Averted. During the battle in Ta Lo, Shang-Chi initially wants to end his father's life so that he can put the past behind, only to realize that such action will not make things better for him.
• Platonic Life-Partners: He became friends with Katy when she defended him from a bully who called him "Gangnam Style" and then they stole the bully's Ford Mustang keys and took it for a joyride. They've been friends for a decade since then, working as hotel valets together and often coming over to her house to eat breakfast. She denies her grandmother accusing her and Shang-Chi of having feelings for each other. It becomes spottier the longer the movie goes on. By the end, they follow Wong with Katy putting her arm around Shang-Chi's, which can be taken either way.
• Primary-Color Champion: The jackets that Shang-Chi wears are either red or blue and yellow in color. When protecting Ta Lo, he wears the red dragon-scale armor that his mother left for him, and the Ten Rings emit a golden/orange/yellow glow when he uses them.
• Prodigal Hero: Shang-Chi was born the son and heir of Xu Wenwu, an immortal warlord and leader of the Ten Rings. However, after his mother's death at the hands of the Iron Gang, he was forced to become an assassin by his father, eventually escaping his past by fleeing to San Francisco and living a normal life away from the Ten Rings for ten years. He's forced to face his past and reconcile his heritage when his father tries to bring him back into the Ten Rings to invade Ta Lo, his mother Ying Li's former village.
• Pronouncing My Name for You: He explains the pronunciation of his name, insisting on the correct Chinese tone to Katy, even doing the hand lift thing to demonstrate.
• Race Lift: Shang-Chi was originally half-white and half-Chinese by editorial mandate. Here both his parents are Chinese. This lines up with the retcon in the film's contemporary comic run that introduced Ying Li as his mother instead of an unnamed white woman.
• Red Is Heroic: The hero of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and wears the red dragon-scale armor left for him by his mother in Ta Lo and his chi manifests as red flames.
• Reimagining the Artifact: In his original comics appearances in the 1970s, Shang-Chi was established as the heroic son of Fu Manchu who rebelled against his father and became a crime fighter. However, there is a twofold reason why this backstory would not work in the 21st century; Firstly, there is Fu Manchu's reputation as the definitive Yellow Peril villain. Secondly, there is how Marvel no longer has the rights to Fu Manchu. To do Shang-Chi's characterization as the "heroic son of a villainous father" justice and work around the lack of the Fu Manchu rights, the movie simply has Shang-Chi instead be the son of the Mandarin.
• Rejecting the Inheritance: Had no desire to become an assassin and succeed his father as leader of the Ten Rings, which led him to flee to San Francisco and live a mundane life for ten years after he was assigned an assassination mission. After reuniting with Wenwu after a decade, Shang-Chi staunchly refuses to join him and the Ten Rings.
• Related in the Adaptation: The Mandarin is his father, even though the characters have no real connections in Marvel Comics. In fact, the two have never even met each other in 616 canon.
• Riches to Rags: He went from being the heir of a millennia-old warlord who lived in a giant compound in China to a hotel valet who lives in a garage apartment. Unlike most examples, he decided to abandon his inheritance and moved to San Francisco to escape his old life and is very much happier living an average life than as a criminal prince.
• The Runaway: After being assigned a mission by his father to assassinate the leader of the Iron Gang, who killed his mother, he ran away to San Francisco when he was 14, abandoning his younger sister and escaping from the Ten Rings and his father, to leave his assassin past behind and out of disgust at himself for killing the Iron Gang leader.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After successfully assassinating his mother's killer, he decides not to return to the Ten Rings and absconds to the Unites States to live a normal life in order to put his past behind him, leaving his younger sister behind.
• Ship Tease: While they're mostly Like Brother and Sister, Katy doesn't seem to mind seeing Shang-Chi shirtless. The ending of the Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings also sees Katy walk off taking hold of Shang-Chi's arm, which could be interpreted any way - and then immediately after, the song played during the Creative Closing Credits is very clearly a love song.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: With his younger sister Xu Xialing. Shang-Chi is cordial and friendly while Xialing is cold and professional. He was trained to become an assassin by his father to succeed him as his heir to the Ten Rings against his own personal desire, while Xialing wanted to be trained but wasn't allowed to because of her gender, and she instead taught herself by watching the training. Although both of them left their father, Shang-Chi moved to San Francisco to have a normal life, in contrast to Xialing who began establishing her fight club at the age of 16 to build her own criminal empire. At the end of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Shang-Chi decides to use the Ten Rings as a superhero, while Xialing replaces her father as leader of the Ten Rings organization.
• Spell My Name With An S: Because it's long-established to be that way in the comics, his given name is romanized according to the older Wade-Giles system while his family's names are in the modern pinyin system. Else it would probably be something like "Shangqi". There's really no other reason why Wenwu isn't "Wen-Wu", for instance.
• Strong and Skilled: He gains superpowers due to his mother's wind manipulation heritage, as well as from getting his father's Ten Rings, and he uses them well due to being an incredibly gifted martial artist.
• Strong Family Resemblance: His aunt Ying Nan states that he looks a lot like his mother, her sister, Ying Li.
• Sue Donym: Shang-Chi's cover name while living a life in San Francisco is simply Shaun. Katy lampshades how painfully flimsy the alias is.
  "It's like if your name was Michael and you went 'I need a good name for my disguise, oh, I'll call myself Makkel!'"
• Summon to Hand: Upon bonding with his father's rings, Shang-Chi can utilize them as projectiles that he can summon back to his arms.
• Supernatural Martial Arts: After accepting his lineage and remembering his mother's words, Shang-Chi is able to use the Ta Lo martial arts style, letting him control the wind and fight his father on a better ground during their rematch. Later on, he combines his mother's fighting style with the full power of his father's rings to destroy the Dweller-in-Darkness.
• Surpassed the Teacher: His Flashbacks to his Training from Hell show he was never quite able to defeat Death Dealer. When they fight again in Xialing's headquarters, he gains the upper hand, and most likely would have finished him off if Wenwu didn't intervene.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: When he starts to bond with all ten of his father's rings, Shang-Chi is able to use them to augment his physical strength, transform them into energy-based whips and projectiles, utilize them like thrusters that can boost his jumps, as well as turn them into floating footholds to help him run across the sky.
• Tragic Keepsake: After the Iron Gang killed his mother, Shang-Chi continues to wear the necklace that she gave him for almost two decades. The pendant of the necklace is later revealed to be a key to the map of Ta Lo's entrance.
• Training from Hell: His father put him through it for his entire adolescence, so he could become a talented martial artist and assassin.
• True Companions: Shang-Chi and Katy's friendship is unshakable. Katy learns the truth about "Shaun" after being attacked on a bus by Razor Fist and his goons, and what does she do? She goes to Macau with him to find his sister even though he clearly intends to go by himself.
  Katy: You can explain on the plane, Shaun!
• Tyke Bomb: At the age of seven, he was trained in every manner of martial arts to serve as an enforcer for the Ten Rings. After another seven years, it took the death of his mother's killer at his hands for him to realize the weight of this role and escape to San Francisco for a decade.
• Unreliable Narrator: Admits to Katy that he left out or lied about some details of his past. Notably that he did actually carry out the assassination and that he did actually agree to his father's quest for revenge.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: When Shang-Chi bonds with the Ten Rings, he starts to use them to fight his father before he chooses to not use them to kill him.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: Wenwu dispatches Shang-Chi to kill the leader of the Iron Gang that killed his wife and ended the happy family life they had, clearly so that his son could get the revenge he promised he would be able to exact on those who killed Yin Li. Shang-Chi agrees in order to avenge his mother, but while he succeeds in doing so and it's indicated he also takes down the Iron Gang for good, it doesn't actually do anything to heal the emotional pain and grief he felt over her death. He's still a traumatized teenager and now is disgusted with himself, having killed people, some of whom may even be innocent in his mother's death, for apparently nothing at all.
• Volcanic Veins: When Shang-Chi powers up the Ten Rings, they cause his arms' veins to glow orange instead of his father's purple.
• Weak, but Skilled: He doesn't have any superpowers or enhancements, but is so talented and great at fighting that he can keep up with those who do have special abilities. He becomes Strong and Skilled after mastering his mother's wind manipulation and getting the Ten Rings from his father Wenwu.
• Would Hit a Girl: Downplayed. Shang-Chi does hit back in his cage match against Xialing, but not too much — his problem is not fighting a woman, just said woman being his sister.
• You Killed My Father: Downplayed.
  • Shang-Chi assassinated the leader of the Iron Gang for murdering his mother, but becomes remorseful of what he had done.
  • Even though Shang-Chi personally witnessed the Dweller-in-Darkness devouring his father's soul, he did not let vengeance become his primary motive when he and his sister work together in killing the creature.

Variants

Zombie Apocalypse Shang-Chi

Xu Shang-Chi / "Shaun"

Birth Name: Xu Shang-Chi

Species: Human

Citizenship: Chinese-Ta Loan, American

Voiced By: Simu Liu

Appearances: Marvel Zombies

On Earth-89521, Shang-Chi is among those fighting to survive the zombie outbreak.

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• Badass Cape: As seen in previews at San Diego Comic Con 2022, Shang-Chi will don a yellow cape and he's a Survivor with extensive training under one of the greatest warriors the world has (had?) ever seen, so he's more than Badass enough.

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"My father trained me to be an assassin. That’s not who I am."